A Sensitivity Problem in Pain Imaging: #cingulategate

I know that the #cingulategate horse has been beaten to death, but I thought it would be worth putting it here, just in case someone had managed to miss it. It all started with a recent paper in PNAS by Lieberman and Eisenberger1 (L&E) that (in my opinion) makes some egregious statements about the specificity of the anterior midcingulate cortex based on Neurosynth – a nifty and useful meta-analysis software, ideal for hypothesis forming. Tal Yarkoni (TY) – the creator of Neurosynth – published a blogpost discussing the various problems with the paper.

L&E responded. And TY responded, and [correctly] suggested a retraction may be in order. Others have also weighed in, including a commentary by Alex Shackman, who also wrote an excellent review of cingulate function2 [although you should really read Vogt’s work on the cingulate3], and a commentary by Tor Wager on the Pain Research Forum (an excellent online resource for pain research). I recommend that every neuroimager, budding or expert, read this series of articles as they provide key information on inference and #hownottodoimaging. I say this because of a pervasive problem in pain imaging, and I suspect imaging in general. Many of these points are also discussed in a forthcoming book chapter4, and in a perspective piece in TiCS5. The latter focuses on L&E’s notion that activation of a loose set of brain regions activated by nociceptive stimuli – the so-called ‘pain matrix’ – is specific to pain. They then use this activation to conclude that “social rejection is painful.” The paper that led to #cingulategate (you can follow it on twitter; hashtag kudos to @dmellingson) basically uses a similarly flawed approach to make a conclusion about the function of the ‘anterior’ cingulate cortex [although it’s the anterior mid-cingulate cortex]. In a future post, I’ll discuss why this line of reasoning is incorrect, and will draw on examples from more recent literature.